Count the Stars
by muertalas
Summary: If I count the stars every night, then maybe I'll find that single one that will fall and grant my wish: You. RikuxSora.
1. Counting Stars

Multi-chaptered RikuxSora story. This is pretty much the prologue, hence why the chapter's called "Counting Stars" when the rest will be "-insert number of chapter- Star". But rambling aside, I'm pretty excited about this one.

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**Counting Stars**

A soft snore resounded off the navy blue walls, barely audible as the slender figure tangled in the comforter and sheets tossed their body into another position on the bed. Clothes were strewn pell-mell across the floor, accompanied by video game controllers, balls of paper, and colorful toys. A hand shot out and slowly from within the safety of the blankets, fingers spread as though trying to grab at something. Yellow curtains had been pulled over the large windows next to the bed, darkening the bedroom. Light brown spikes overlay the pillows while yet another grumble erupted from the owner – a teenage boy's throat.

The oak door that lay at a far side of the room creaked open, a sliver of golden light creeping into the bedroom. An air of caution enveloped the doorway as a shadowed silhouette peered inside before taking a step inside and walking over to the bed. Reaching up to pull down the hood of the sweatshirt that adorned them, the figure – now able to be identified as a silver-haired teenage boy – slouched down to look more closely at the bedridden one, bangs too far in front of his face to rightfully acquire a true expression, though the frown playing on his lips gave an idea that he was not happy the least bit.

"Sora," he stated quietly, placing a hand on the covers and shaking the youth in an attempt to wake him but to no avail. The youth merely turned his back to the intruder, more and more shadows covering his body as he subconsciously tuned the other out. Sighing, the silver-haired teen shook rougher, making sure that his voice was louder now. "Sora, up 'n at 'em; it's time to wake up."

A misery-laced groan was what he was met with, as well as a pitiful swat of a left hand that was carefully caught by the other, long spider-fingers wrapping themselves around the skinny wrist that was attached to Sora. Another sigh racked the silver-haired boy's ribcage before he merely shook his head and dropped down to his knees, wrist still in his grasp.

"All you do is sleep, Sora," he whispered, dropping his gaze down to the tanned limb that he daintily held. "C'mon… stay awake for more than an hour today… please?" A frustrated tear dripped down the paler one's cheek, though he swiped it away quickly as if embarrassed by the unwanted show of emotion.

Silence met the adolescent. Not a rustle of fabric meeting skin; not a gentle snore that usually replied to the boy's pleas. _Nothing_.

"You know I barely ever beg, Sora. But can't you just answer me once? You don't talk anymore, I know you barely eat and..." A pause – an intake of breath as he readied himself to continue his obvious ramble as he lost his impassive ruse altogether. "… And you're worrying everybody too, y'know. Not just your parents and Kairi and Selphie and Tidus… but me too. Not that you'll ever hear that when you're conscious," he added with a small smile. He gripped the wrist tighter, as if reassuring the slumbering boy something that words could not supply explanation to, and stood up slowly, body trembling somewhat as he steadied himself and blew a few stray hairs away from his thin, chapped lips.

"I doubt anything will get through to him, Riku, dear," a voice said softly from the doorway. Riku, turning, let go of the practically deadened hand. It recoiled back to its owner and Sora loosed an almost inaudible cry from his lungs. "He only wakes around nine PM; you'll have to come back around then."

"Do you know why, though?" Riku cocked his head curiously and took a couple of short steps towards the maternal looking woman – Sora's mother – leaning somewhat against the white doorframe. "It's like he's in a coma all day or something." He thrust his hands into the pouch pocket that his sweatshirt offered and eyed the woman curiously.

A minute passed in quiet, Sora's mother staring at her son all-the-while. "No, I don't know and neither does the doctor. All we can do is hope he comes out of this _funk_ before school starts up again." She exhaled noisily through her nose, placing her arms across her chest in a defeated fashion before throwing Riku a motherly nod as she walked away.

Riku wasn't sure if she had heard his heart shatter in his chest, but he sure as hell had. Glass crumbling and fracturing into bite-sized pieces as he realized that his best friend was about as awake as a zombie usually was. He bit his lip harshly once the hard, practically demonic truth impaled him, nailing him to the floor in which he stood upon. Stars clouded his vision and Riku swayed on the spot.

Sora was but a broken marionette, and the puppeteer was unknown to all except the splintered boy. His puppet strings were fraying and the artificial joints were cracking straight down the middle. Riku drew plasma from his bottom lip as he was forcefully reminded of the magical doll, Pinocchio. The guilt that pin-balled through his torso merely added to the negativity that was swelling within Riku's heart.

"Nine o' clock. Nine PM," he mumbled, glancing over his shoulder to look at Sora's still-dozing figure. "I'll be waiting, Sora."


	2. First Star

**First Star**

A dark blanket entombed the sky in blackness, pinpricks of light peering through in the form of stars. The horizon was lined with the ocean, vibrant colors having faded into an abyss. The secluded island's beach acted as a sanctuary for the humans, offering safety for those who wished for it and solitude for escapees of reality. The tide tickled the sandy shore, washing the footprints that had previously been embedded into the small rocks away. Yet, there were more leading down the line. And more and more and more, stopping short of a silver-haired, aqua-eyed teen dressed still in the dark sweatshirt and jeans he had insisted on wearing earlier that day.

At the sound of movement behind him, Riku turned quickly in surprise, body tensed and gaze bright in awareness. Though, when his eyesight had finally adjusted to the lack of brightness, he slouched once more as he smiled in a relieved sense at the image of a slender, spiky-haired boy wrapped in a single, woolen comforter obviously for warmth. Sighing, he walked towards the younger one, a hand clenched into a fist inside his pocket.

"Your mom told me that you usually disappear here," explained Riku, placing a cautious hand on Sora's shoulder blade. The brunette flinched visibly and Riku quickly retracted his grip on the boy. A doll so very broken didn't deserve to be played with, or even touched. "And since it's such a… nice night, I just thought I'd meet up with you to… talk." The awkwardness in the air tasted so bitter at that moment.

Sora gave no implication that he had heard Riku. The pair of cerulean eyes that were stuck inside his sockets had glazed over long ago, no longer conscious of the outside world. They were blank and emotionless, merely staring out before his path, barely able to detect what was tangible and what was not. His stature had weakened, along with his ability to communicate. His voice was lost in the caverns of his heart, taking the beating that the emotional turmoil of everything that Riku could only imagine he had succumbed to over the past two years.

Sora was broken. Sora was beaten. Sora was damned.

One step, two steps, three steps. The brunette stumbled forward, shedding his makeshift cocoon inadvertently as he stared up at the luminescent sheets of dusk above. His bare feet didn't flinch out of the way of the ice cold ocean water as the waves touched them, his skin erupting in goosebumps though he, of course, paid that no mind either. Sora's arms hung limply at his sides; they were not wielding the Keyblade, at the ready for the next adversary to come at him and for him to just swing it. The Heartless and the Nobodies and every other enemy that they had ever come into contact with had merely become nightmares that one would learn to deal with over time.

But Sora was a completely different story. Anyone could tell that with a single glance at the correct target: his eyes. Those once permanently cheerful, almost naïve cerulean pools had become darker and much more lost looking, as if a shadow had taken every bit of his light from him, despite how much his heart emanated such a glow. Even that had been seemingly extinguished.

Riku, though, needed to know whether or not that light could be reignited. He refused to be defeated this easily when both of them had won against Xemnas together; when they had closed the Door to Darkness together; when they had both gone through so much. The teenager couldn't just up and _lose_ now.

The Keywielder was up to his shins in the sea water, waves breaking against his bony legs, taunting the limbs as if searching for a weak point so that they could send Sora toppling into the ocean. His body shivered against his will, but his eyes; his_ mind_ would not let him break his ties with the stars. They had him hooked and were drawing him in closer and closer and closer until he would have to drown to go further.

_He would have to drown._

In an instant, Riku had placed a firm grip upon Sora's shoulders, holding him back and therefore ceasing his feet from moving any further into the water. The older one winced as the icy waves engulfed his lower legs, numbing them and bringing the denim of his jeans closer to his skin in a python-like fashion. His voice came out in a trembling whisper; whether his shivers resulted from fear or from the cold, even he did not know.

"Stop, S-Sora, p-p-please. Y-You know t-the s-stars w-won't get any c-closer if y-you drown."

The younger stopped his inadvertent struggles, almost as if shocked that this silver-haired outsider of his brain had just shattered his dreams. His lips quivered, cerulean eyes gazing still at the celestial lights above. _If only, if only he could reach them once more_…

"Y-You can c-c-count them with m-me if y-you want," continued Riku, speaking a mile a minute as the first thing that he could think of flew off his tongue, "b-but p-please d-do it on shore. N-No n-need to g-get hypo-hypothermia f-for t-the s-stars…"

Sora allowed himself to be guided back to the beach, feet barely dragging against the rough sand below the water as Riku lifted him up a bit. His stare never strayed from the ornaments of the sky, eyes still glassy and face expressionless; a ghost of a boy. He did not curl up into his invisible shield when he was finally set down upon the beach. He didn't move a muscle when Riku wrapped the blanket he had discarded not even five minutes beforehand around the both of them. He didn't give any implication that he heard his best friend when he finally spoke dreadfully calm; _forcefully_ calm.

"Do you remember," he began, a small smile gracing his lips as the memory happily flooded his mind, "when we first went out to the island? You were what, four? And I was five, right? And we found The Secret Place, but you were afraid to go in, saying that there were 'monsters', but I told you that 'I would protect you, always'. We spent the entire summer covering that cave with chalk drawings and the summers that followed that too, remember?" He glanced at Sora, only to find that the boy had no answer to give. The stars had mesmerized him into an even deeper trance. "Sora… Come on, bud, at least answer me… I don't care how short it is, just let me know that your…" He trailed off despite his want to voice his plea. He hoped to God that what he was imagining wasn't true. Oh please, oh please, oh please, he hoped it wasn't true. "… Just let me know that your heart is still in one piece."

The stars were too loud for Sora to hear his friend. And so, Riku did not receive his much-needed answer.


End file.
